Warming Up... Again

One month ago, I took a business trip to Austin, Texas. I turned on the radio in the rental car, and first thing I heard was a weather report. "Cover your plants, we may have Austin's first frost of the season tonight," came the warning. I laughed; after all, our first frost in Michigan this year was in September, and it was currently December 11.

After the weather report, the station's scheduled programming came on. It was Rush Limbaugh. Over the next 6 minutes, he managed to tie "global warming" in to a liberal agenda that included everything from taxing the wealthy to policies on illegal immigration to gun control to calls to ban NFL kickoffs. "That's how the left does it," he explained. "They guilt you in to accepting their global warming belief."

As I write, it is 57 degrees Fahrenheit here in West Bloomfield. The normal high temperature for January 12th is 32 degrees. It is the 7th day of our warm-up. Local ski areas are closed. Of course, that is just weather, and it's cold in California. Besides, it seems that many people who don't run businesses that depend on the cold, are happy about it. I sat in the hygienist's chair on Tuesday, as she said, "I hope it stays up in the 40s all winter. I remember when it used to get to 25 below at night. This is so much better." I can't cure that, not even by pointing out that there has never been a recorded temperature of 25 below in Detroit. I wrote about these trends 6 years ago, and nothing has changed... except that it is warmer now.

When I conceptualized this post, it was going to be for the purpose of documenting last year's apple pressing season. I haven't done that in 3 years, and if I don't write down the numbers somewhere I may eventually forget. So I use the blog. Here are the accumulated numbers:

Year Pressings Ounces Average Gallons 2012 6 1968 328 15.4 2011 13 4696 361 36.7 2010 7 2817 402 22.0 2009 10 3799 380 29.7 2008 16 5581 349 43.6 2007 8 3080 385 24.1 2006 17 6251 368 48.8 2005 8 2604 326 20.3 2004 14 6038 431 47.2 2003 18 7515 418 58.7 2002 5 954 191 7.5 2001 26 7039 271 55.0 2000 22 5801 264 45.3 1999 18 4134 230 32.3 1998 23 3416 149 26.7 1997 13 1137 87 8.8 Total 224 66830 298 522.1
	Aaron setting the sprinkler, March 26, 2012
August 19, 2012	Pressing: A community event. October 7, 2012

The past two seasons, I have supplemented my own apples by purchasing bushels from an orchard in southern Michigan. This accounted for about half of my yield these two years; before that I also gathered apples from a neighbor's yard.

Part of the crop, salvaged: October 11, 2012

What happened in 2012? It got hot, that's what. In March, we had 3 consecutive days of 80 degree heat, and 13 consecutive days of temperatures at least 20 degrees above normal. Trees bloomed a full month early. At the time, I wrote that it was a "looming disaster for our tree fruit," and it was. When temperatures inevitably fell to "normal" for that time of year, the impact on the trees was devastating. Our entire cherry crop was wiped out, as well as about 99% of the pear crop.

Aaron and I went to war with the elements, to try to save the cherries and apples. Every night we positioned the sprinklers, let them go all night, and prayed the the temperature would stay just warm enough to avoid catastrophe. For the apples, which bloomed a little later than the cherries, it worked enough to save part of the crop.

Michigan farmers, in general, weren't so fortunate. One headline called it a "natural disaster"; my only quibble with that would be on the word "natural." Prices were up; a bushel that cost $9 last year, cost $15 this year (and that was a bargain; most of the local orchards charged $28 or more, if they had bushels to offer at all). Cider mills scrambled for apples, and were routinely charging $10 or more per gallon. Still, a 50% price hike does little to erase a 90% supply drop. U-pick seasons were canceled altogether by many orchards.

I keep in mind that what I heard that December day on Rush Limbaugh's radio show was after our crop wipe-out in Michigan. It was after Hurricane Sandy demolished parts of my home state of New Jersey -- the second storm in just 60 weeks to have a devastating effect. I don't much have to wonder who is guilting whom with their "belief." For whatever reasons -- and it's not terribly hard to guess what they are -- "global warming" has become a partisan political football. There are some terrifying projections, but officially even "The Left" is silent on the matter.

During October, a man knocked on our door. He was holding two giant apples, which he had obtained by trespassing on to our property and taking from one of our trees (they were the only apples that that tree produced this year). He announced that he worked for one of the lawn care companies that tended to a house in the neighborhood, and that he was a hunter, and was going the apples for bait. He was really excited because nobody else around had apples, and wanted to know if he could take more. When I reflect on Rush's words, I think also of that little petty theft... maybe that's part of the guilting. But I don't think so. Kickoff is in an hour.